Islam and North America: Loving our Muslim Neighbors

By Micah Fries

Love your Muslim neighbors.

Motivated by a deep-rooted conviction that the North American church needs to be equipped for this important task, Micah Fries and Keith Whitfield have gathered a group of experts who are deeply invested in successful outreach to their Muslim neighbors. Unlike many resources that explore the topic of Islam as a dominant religion in the Middle East, Islam and North America focuses on the presence of Islam here in North America. Answering questions about the commonalities between Christians and Muslims, freedom of worship, the Quran, and Sharia law, this book will equip North American Christians to think about Islam theologically and missionally, engage their Muslim neighbors hospitably, and encourage readers to find new opportunities for missional engagement in their own backyards.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BH Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781462748426

Book preview

"I try to relate well to Muslim tech workers, restaurant managers, Uber drivers, and students in my city, but in my ignorance, I only get so far. Islam and North America helps me with next steps for knowing, understanding, and loving these neighbors. I am so grateful for the hopefulness, wisdom, and the wide perspectives of these authors."

—Linda Bergquist, church planting catalyst, North American Mission Board

"The authors of Islam and North America have not only read about Islam; they have lived intentionally to minister to Muslims in North America and around the world. This book is the product of their wisdom and experience and will serve anyone who wants to reach those in their community. As we gain a better understanding of this important group, my prayer is that a growing number of believers will befriend and share the gospel with their Muslim neighbors."

—Kevin Ezell, president, North American Mission Board

The peoples of Islam comprise the most promising mission field in the world today, and those who want to be on the front lines of God’s greatest work will be engaging with Muslims. As Micah Fries and Keith Whitfield show us, God has brought the front lines to our back door. They have compiled some of our generation’s brightest evangelical minds to show us how we can effectively [engage] with them. This is an insightful and helpful work at an opportune time. I am excited to commend it.

—J. D. Greear, president, Southern Baptist Convention, and pastor, The Summit Church, Raleigh-Durham, NC

The Great Commandment is easy to assent to but difficult to live out, especially in our rapidly changing communities. Micah Fries and Keith Whitfield have provided a timely, helpful, and practical book on how to love some of our least known North American neighbors, Muslims. They have done a masterful job of assembling scholars, practitioners, and multiple former Muslims to help us get to better know our Muslim neighbors in order to meaningfully love them.

—Greg Mathias, assistant professor of global studies, associate director, Center for Great Commission Studies, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

The Christian encounter with Islam is one of the most pressing realities faced by the church today. Micah Fries and Keith Whitfield bring together much-needed resources in this single volume—combining pastoral insight and scholarship. This book is a timely contribution that will greatly serve Christian leaders and congregations.

—R. Albert Mohler Jr., president, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

"God is moving in the twenty-first century to fulfill his mission in unprecedented ways. The gospel is penetrating previously unreached people groups, and church growth is accelerating around the world. The world of Islam seems to be the remaining formidable barrier for fulfilling the Great Commission. Yet God, as sovereign over the nations, is moving in amazing ways in using globalization, persecution, and political disruption to bring masses of Muslims to America. Islam and North America is a valuable tool to help churches and individual Christians understand Islam and how to reach them for Christ in the new sociological context of our own community. Written by an array of seasoned missiologists, and those with cross-cultural witnessing experience, this book will equip Christians to build relationships and seize the privilege of extending the kingdom of God to those long resistant to the gospel."

—Jerry Rankin, president emeritus, International Mission Board, senior fellow, Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies

Islam and North America

Copyright © 2018 by Micah Fries and Keith Whitfield

Published by B&H Academic

Nashville, Tennessee

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4627-4842-6

DEWEY: 297

SUBHD: ISLAM \ MUSLIMS \ ISLAMIC AMERICANS

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Holman CSB®, and HCSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture quotations marked CSB are taken from The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The web addresses referenced in this book were live and correct at the time of the book’s publication but may be subject to change.

Printed in the United States of America

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To our parents,

Paul and Cheryl Fries

and

Larry and Cheryl Whitfield

For teaching us to love Jesus and the nations

for the glory of God and his great name.

FOREWORD

A CALL TO KEEP GOING

Kambiz Saghaey

In 1997, on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea, an angry man entered an evangelical church. This small church, started by international missionaries, was baptizing former Muslims. The man who entered the church door that day was raised as a devout Iranian Muslim. He chanted the Quran in public competitions and performed the call to prayer. He came that day to challenge the leadership of the church for converting Muslims to Christianity.

For the next nine months, this man argued with the church members about the tenets of Christianity, causing many problems for them. Someone gave him a Bible to read, and he ignored it because he believed the Bible was full of errors. But his wife suggested that they should read the Bible so they could better argue with the Christians. The more they read the Bible, however, the more they began to question Islam.

My name is Kambiz, and that angry Islamic man was me.

As I read the Bible and argued with those Christians, I came to the point where I didn’t even know who I was anymore. My heart began to change. While I was still angry with God, I began praying. For three weeks, this was my prayer to God: For twenty-seven years I did my best. I followed the sharia law to the letter. I did all the things you told me to do, and now you tell me the things I believe are wrong? I will follow you. I want to worship you, but I need to see you! Won’t you come down and show yourself to me? Then one day, as I sat in a church service, still wondering about this question, the text of John 3:7–8 caused new thoughts to flood into my mind. This passage talks about how we don’t know where the wind comes from. God said to me, You want to see me? I have come. I am inside you. I sensed God’s presence during that worship service, and I gave my heart to the Lord. My wife, Sepideh, was in church also, and I went to her and told her that I had given my heart to the Lord. I’m so happy, she said. Last week it happened to me too. I was praying for you.

God used two things in particular to change my heart. The first one was the display of love among the church members. One example of this love was when one of them brought his motorcycle to our house on Sunday. The man knew we did not have a ride to church, so he left his motorcycle for me and my family to use, and he walked thirty minutes to church. At first, I thought the people were planning to deceive me with false acts of love. But later on, I realized that this love was sincere, and it came from their hearts. Finding this pure sort of love outside of church was impossible. The second thing God used to change me was the way these Christians answered life’s hard questions. Muslims answer religious questions with stories; Christians can give answers about life’s most important questions directly from the Bible.

Life as Disciples of Jesus

In 2000, Sepideh and I moved to Istanbul, Turkey, and we started a house church there. Then, in 2003, we felt called by God to return to Iran despite the harsh treatment of Christians by the Iranian authorities. Witnessing to Muslims is forbidden in Iran, and those who leave Islam face the death penalty. The authorities there often raid house-church services and arrest those in attendance. The smuggling in, publishing, or reprinting of Bibles and Christian literature is illegal. In spite of this anti-Christian environment, however, I pastored my first Iranian house church in 2003. We started out with only two members: my wife and me. But God richly blessed our underground church by multiplying the believers. Before long, our one little congregation had become three churches with seventy members total, and I was their pastor.

God commands all believers in Matt 28:19 to go, therefore, and make disciples. Therefore, our underground churches started ministering to a nomadic people group. These nomads had no electricity, and they could not read or write. So the only way to share the gospel with them was to set up a tent among them. This is what we did. For seven years, these churches served Jesus without detection.

Praising God in Jail

I had always expected to be arrested in Iran for pastoring underground house churches. Seven years after starting my first church, my time finally came. While we were celebrating an early Christmas party on December 15, 2009, more than twenty Iranian policemen stormed through the front door of the house in which we were meeting. Everyone’s personal information and cell phones were collected. For six months, there had been a spy in the midst of our congregation, and I had become a target of the authorities.

That evening, just ten days before Christmas, I found myself in a jail cell. I was blindfolded and intensely questioned regarding my involvement in the three local house churches. At first, my heart and mind raced, worrying about my family, the churches, and the future. But then God reminded me of how he had brought me through other challenges in my life. I experienced a deep peace as I remembered that God was still in control. After that, one of the main things I did while I was in jail was give praise to him.

Sepideh and our two young children had no idea where I was for twenty-one days. They simply but fearfully thought I was missing until three weeks later, when they learned where I was being held by the authorities. However, my future still wasn’t certain. The corrupt practices of the Iranian prison meant that I wasn’t officially registered as a prisoner. This meant that anything could happen to me—including death—and no one would know. Finally, after more than two months behind bars, I was registered as an official prisoner.

The interrogator tried many tactics to learn more about the network of underground Christians and their nearby house churches. One day he would shout in my face; the next day he would offer me money and goods if I would agree to return to Islam. He even tried to use my adopted daughter to leverage my cooperation, threatening to remove her from our home if I did not help. Psychologically, it was very hard. I expected that at any time they would begin to beat me.

Finding Freedom

After eighty-six days in jail, a friend posted my bail of $45,000, and I was released. It was then that I learned about the spy who had been attending one of our house churches and had informed the government officials of these subversive Christian gatherings. Because of this, I faced two charges: one for subverting the Iranian government, and the other for subverting Islam. In Iran, we have a two-court system: the Revolutionary Court and the civil court. The charges of subverting the government were to be heard by the Revolutionary Court, and the charges of subverting Islam were to be heard by the civil court.

First, I was tried for subverting the government. As I prepared for my case in the Revolutionary Court, Sepideh shared her faith with the prosecutor and told him the church was fasting and praying for him.

Really? For me? the prosecutor said.

Yes, for you, because of the position you’re in, Sepideh said. It is God’s job to judge. But God gave that position to you.

The judge in the Revolutionary Court found nothing against me based on the original charges. He pointed out that I hadn’t done anything against the government; rather, I was a Muslim who had simply become a Christian, and for that reason, the judge wanted to change the charge to apostasy. When he couldn’t change the charges, he looked at me and told me: I will find something against you to kill you. I was released, but when I went back to court, the prosecutor took my case before another judge, who acquitted me of all charges, with a time of probation. I later found out that the reason we changed courts was that the judge who’d threatened me had died. Everyone knew my wife and I were praying for the court officials. Now, the legal authorities now feared us.

During those times, Ps 37:32, 36 was very real in my life. The passage says, The wicked one lies in wait for the righteous and seeks to kill him. . . . Then I passed by and noticed he was gone; I searched for him, but he could not be found. The prosecutor whom we had prayed for previously asked me if I had also prayed for the judge who died. I told him, yes, we had prayed—we prayed for his healing, not for his death. But his death was God’s decision, and God’s will was done.

This situation shows the Lord’s power to protect his children by saving me from death, but the judge in the civil case found me guilty and sentenced me to two years in prison. After several unsuccessful appeals, my family and I moved to Turkey and applied for asylum with the United Nations as refugees.

Continuing God’s Work

We spent the next four years in Turkey, where we started two new churches for Iranian believers and launched a training center for Iranian pastors. These churches conduct outreach programs for Iranian tourists, including during the time of Nowruz, which marks the Iranian New Year. Each March, 2 million Iranians celebrate this holiday in Turkey. Last year alone, our churches partnered with other churches to distribute Christian literature to about 7,600 Muslims in Istanbul.

While in Turkey, I took Southeastern Seminary classes through their distance learning program. About a year ago, our family moved to the United States. Sepideh and I are now both studying on-campus at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and we work among Iranian students, businesspeople, and refugees. Before we came to Southeastern, Lexington Baptist Church in Lexington, South Carolina, helped our family settle into the United States. Our relationship with that church started while we were in Turkey, when some of its members traveled overseas to partner with us in ministry.

I am so glad God gave me this opportunity. I am thankful to have the freedom to study the Bible and worship God.

I also preach online to Iranian churches in Turkey, and Sepideh writes radio programs to reach more Iranians for Christ. Recently, I became coordinator for Persian leadership development at Southeastern Seminary. My vision in this new position is to start high school, college, and seminary programs online in the Farsi language, for Christians both in Iran and outside the country. We do these things because the people in this region of the world are in desperate need of the gospel.

In Iran today, there is great persecution of Christians. This current wave of persecution began during the Islamic Revolution under the reign of Ruhollah Khomeini, the grand ayatollah. Yet paradoxically, I believe that the ayatollah is responsible for the tremendous growth of Christianity in Iran. He so strongly emphasized Islam that people have seen its true face—and many are turning back from it as a result.